TENNIS; Satisfying Victories for U.S. Players

By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY

Published: January 17, 2006

Nothing obscures the rest of the field in the first week of a Grand Slam tournament like big stars in trouble, and the Williams sisters cast a large dual shadow on Day 1 of the Australian Open. Venus Williams lost her match against the Bulgarian teenager Tszvetana Pironkova, and Serena frequently lost her way before defeating Li Na of China in three sets.

But as the teeming halls and outside courts of Melbourne Park make clear, there are a small world of other stories at the year's first Grand Slam event. And two of the more satisfying involved Americans with hardly any hope of winning this tournament but with no shortage of hope in general.

The reward for Paul Goldstein and Ashley Harkleroad was a place in the second round. Harkleroad advanced on Monday with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Peng Shuai of China and will face fourth-seeded Maria Sharapova. On Tuesday, the 29-year-old Goldstein changed enough pace and chased down enough balls to drive the highly regarded 18-year-old Novak Djokovic of Serbia to distraction in a 6-2, 1-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory.

For Harkleroad, a 20-year-old from Georgia, it was her first victory in a Grand Slam event in nearly two years. It was a period highlighted by her marriage to the men's player Alex Bogomolov Jr. and lowlighted by a nine-month break from the Tour to recover from damage to her right elbow and damage to her psyche caused, in part, by the weight of lofty expectations.

''I was so young and everything happened really fast,'' she said.

''Some people can handle that, and other people can't. For instance, Sharapova, she came out, and she's been on top ever since. I came out swinging, and there were just a lot of things I just don't think mentally I was ready for. I'm a late maturer. I just think it became only about tennis, and that was it, and I didn't know what was important in life besides winning or losing.''

She broke into the top 40 in 2003 after a run to the third round of the French Open, but though she had plenty of competitive spark and a solid two-handed backhand, she lacked the big shot and physical presence to move to the very highest level.

''I put a lot of pressure on myself,'' she said. ''I guess my highest ranking was 38 or 39. I never thought that was good enough. I was always, like, 'Terrible, you've got to do better.' When I dropped to 50, I was, like, 'What's going on?' When in reality, you're doing pretty good.''

Shortly before her break from the Tour, she also had a brief and unpleasant encounter with Joe Giuliano, a coach who was barred for life from the Tour in the wake of allegations that he had assaulted Evgenia Linetskaya of Russia and made sexual advances to other players he coached, including the American Tara Snyder.

Harkleroad hired Giuliano for a single tournament in the spring of 2004, then dismissed him. Her father, Daniel, later complained to Tour officials that Giuliano had acted inappropriately.

''It's a very positive thing he won't be coming around,'' said Harkleroad, who has brought no formal charges against Giuliano. ''He's just got some issues that I think he probably needs to work out, just for the sake of the girls, to feel comfortable out here.''

Harkleroad cites her father and husband as those who helped her the most during her layoff. ''My husband took some tournaments off and helped me out to try and get me back and enjoying it,'' she said.

Bogomolov, 22, struggled last year and is 202nd in the rankings. But he and Harkleroad were rewarded for their perseverance when they qualified here. That is a process that Goldstein knows all too well after seven years on tour. A former standout at Stanford, he is one of the few college graduates in the professional game. Although his classmates have taken more secure jobs in the professional world, he has continued to plug away from the baseline, putting his quick feet and mind to work against bigger, more gifted men.

After spending several seasons outside the top 100, largely in tennis's challenger circuit, he has made his way back to No. 68 with his 30th birthday looming in August. Tuesday's victory was his first at the Australian Open in nearly five years.

It came amid a rowdy atmosphere on Court 13 that sometimes turned edgy as some of Djokovic's fans in the stands shouted ''Osama'' as Goldstein threw up the ball to serve.

It was a rough day all around for teenage men on Tuesday, as the rising French luminaries Gael Monfils and Richard Gasquet and the British hopeful Andy Murray were beaten in straight sets.

Gasquet, seeded No. 14, was manhandled by Tommy Haas, 6-2, 7-5, 6-2. The leading men held up better in the first round, including top-seeded Roger Federer, who had little difficulty against the wild card Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan, winning, 6-2, 6-3, 6-2. Second-seeded Andy Roddick also needed only three sets to defeat the Swiss qualifier Michael Lammer, and James Blake, fresh off a tournament victory in Sydney, beat Jose Acasuso of Argentina in four sets.

On the women's side, there were moments, after the steamy afternoon gave way to a balmy evening, when it seemed that both Williams sisters would get a cold dose of tennis reality. But ultimately, Serena slugged her way past her demons. She served for the match against Li for the first time at 5-4 in the second set and played one of the shakier games of her career, losing it with two consecutive double faults.

Serena lost the set in a lopsided tie breaker, then dropped her serve again in the opening game of the third, looking world weary and leg weary and emitting a woeful ''Nooooo!'' as she struck her latest forehand long.

But Serena was soon shrieking at the ball and crushing it consistently deep. She won win the next four games, then closed out a 6-3, 6-7 (1), 6-2 victory that was more a relief than genuinely reassuring.